She held his gaze for a moment, but it was inscrutable. His eyes were deep-set in a flattened face that was a mass of leathery brown-black wrinkles. Those eyes—which, yes, as Zeke had noted, were turning gold—told them nothing.
“Inexplicable,” Rector breathed.
And Houjin said, “Sasquatch.”
“Here he is, boys. Only a handful of folks have ever seen him, or ever will, I expect.” She took the big glass helmet in her hands, and passed it toward Zeke. “You do it,” she told him.
Zeke took the helmet and held it up, checking for cracks and testing its filters. The sasquatch’s eyes followed the globe. He tracked the thing up into the last slivers of light, watching it catch those rays and reflect them, bowed and broken, in the curve of the glass.
Zeke lowered the helmet, putting it in front of the creature’s face and letting him get a good look. “See? It’s just a mask, like the ones we wear—but a little different.” As he showed the sasquatch, he appeared to be genuinely curious and paying close attention. “I’m going to put this on you. It’ll feel funny at first, but then you’ll breathe better. You’ll feel better, I think. I’m going to try it now. Let me do it, please? I don’t want to fight you for it.”
To Rector’s frank astonishment, the brute held still, like he was kept in place with a madman’s jacket and not an oversized net made of fisherman’s yarn. He closed his eyes when Zeke lowered the helmet-mask, cringing when the seals settled around his neck. He stretched and leaned inside the device, gazing out at them with questions he couldn’t ask and they couldn’t answer.
“I know, it’s a little tight. You’re a lot bigger than the folks it was made for. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable, though—and trust me, it’ll be for the best. The seal is snug, but it’s sitting against all that hair…” Zeke’s voice trailed off apologetically.
Houjin mumbled, “I guess we’ll find out.” He was poking at the scrapes on his torso, doing his best not to scratch them. He realized he was being watched, so he quit worrying the minor injuries and closed his tattered shirt, then crossed his arms over his chest to hug himself. “Well, now what?”
The sasquatch stared out at them, his head filling the fishbowl-shaped object to full capacity. His chest rose and fell with a little more difficulty than before, but he did not appear to be in any pain—or even, Rector noted, serious distress.
Angeline observed this, too. “Now, we let him be. The sun’s down, or close enough to it, and we have trouble waiting tonight.”
Zeke frowned. “We’re leaving him?”
“Only for now, sweetheart. We’ll come back for him in the morning, but it’s best to keep him out of the way for now. Things are going to get messy inside these walls. Better he’s safe in here than roaming out in the park.” She paused, and said the rest as if she feared it was a terrible omen.
“Or out at the tower.”
Twenty-eight
As night fell, the city grew more anxious with every stretch of every shadow.
Hanging over everything was the knowledge—the absolute certainty—that violence waited on the other side of that bleak horizon when the sun was lost and the walls held only darkness. Together, the whole underground held its breath. The men at the Station, the Chinese in their district, the Doornails in the Vaults, the former pirates up at Fort Decatur … everyone took the logical precautions, stocked the necessary weaponry and supplies, and waited to hear that it was time to go.
Houjin had disappeared upon returning from their adventure with the sasquatch.
Rector assumed he’d gone to lie down or find Mercy Lynch to see about some salve for those scratches; but Zeke reminded him that, no, Houjin had business back at the Station with his alarm clocks and dynamite. If he was scratched up at all, he’d see Doctor Wong or work right through it. He was tough, that’s what Zeke said.
Angeline had left them to pursue some interest of her own, though she hadn’t specified what. So it was only the two boys for the moment, killing time inside Maynard’s with a number of other men who were likewise waiting for word.
When word came, it arrived from down below.
It came on the silent feet of messengers who slipped up from the tunnels to warn the assorted factions that It’s here, it’s now. They’re moving, and we must move faster.
Packs were hoisted onto backs. Masks were checked, and clipped to suspenders and belts. Goggles and spectacles with polarized glass were jammed quickly onto faces, and warm, shuttered lanterns were readied. They needed light, but not too much light. They needed to see, but not be seen.
As the men filed out the door, Rector and Zeke fell into line behind them, joining the flow. They’d already talked it over between themselves, and with the lumberman Mr. Miller. Their plan was not to make for the Station, but to head toward the tower. There, they would serve as lookouts, manning the perimeter and helping identify the enemy should the fray become heated.
They’d been given lanterns that were different from those the other men carried. These had been designed by the late Dr. Minnericht, and Yaozu called them spotlights. They were gas-powered and heavy—like a larger version of the focus beams Rector had seen a time or two before—but when they were lit and aimed, they directed a brilliant, steady light for many yards. They would use these lights to blind the tower men, and single them out.
“We aren’t going to kill anybody, are we?” Zeke had asked.
Rector told him, “No, that’s a job for other people. We’re just here to watch our own. It’s us or them, Zeke. Us or them.”
Now that the moment had come, Zeke was valiantly holding his composure in place—better than Rector, maybe. Rector shook beneath the load of his oversized lamp. He felt uncommonly sweaty, and his heart wouldn’t stop banging around in his rib cage. He was nervous, that was all. He knew it, but that didn’t make it any easier.
On their way out the door, a woman’s voice called Zeke’s name.
It wasn’t his mother, thank God. It was Lucy O’Gunning.
“Zeke, baby.”
“I’m not a baby, Mrs. O’Gunning.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. She seemed to wrestle with some internal question. Her brows furrowed, and her mechanical arm fidgeted with the edge of her apron. “I only mean … your momma doesn’t know you’re off to join them, does she?”
“I’m old enough,” he said calmly. “And Momma’s up at Fort Decatur with the captain, helping with the ships and hydrogen.”
The last of the men exited Maynard’s, leaving just the three of them standing on its threshold. Mrs. O’Gunning was nearly too worried to speak. She spoke anyway. “You don’t have guns, do you?”
“No,” Rector assured her. It wasn’t true. One of the Station men had let him borrow one. But he was semiconfident Zeke had nothing on him except the miner’s pick.
Zeke held his ground. “We’re only playing a supporting role.”
“Yeah? And who told you that?” she asked, knowing as well as Rector that it wasn’t the way Zeke usually talked.
“Yaozu. He wants us out of the way, but he knows we can help. We’ll be real careful, Mrs. O’Gunning, and we’ll be back tonight for some cider, if you’ll let us have any. I think we’ll all be celebrating before long.”
A new voice chimed in. “I don’t.”
Now Zeke started stammering. “Hello … Miss Mercy.”
“Heading out to fight, are you? Well, I don’t guess anyone could stop you. But I’m not looking forward to a celebration, because I know who’ll be patching up those of you who fall out of trees, or get your fingers blown off, or get shot when the tower men realize they’ve been had.”
Lucy O’Gunning nodded sadly. “You got the rooms set up?”
“As best I can. Rector, you’ve moved your stuff out, ain’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. That’s one more bed, plus the six we’ve got on either side. I pray we don’t need ’em. Miss Lucy, I was hoping I could trouble you for a few bottles of your highest-proof grain alcohol. Might want it later on.”
“Sure, honey. I’ll get you what I’ve got.”
Lucy reluctantly turned away from the boys and opened the door once more, it having closed itself behind them. But Mercy Lynch lingered, and she said to them, “Best take care of yourselves. I’ve seen boys younger than you made heroes, and made dead.”
Zeke blushed, Rector would’ve sworn to it. “We’ll take care of ourselves.”
“I hope so. You’re grown men, or close enough as makes no difference to anyone but your mothers. So stay alert, keep your head down, and don’t take any silly chances.” She left them with that, and the last thing Rector saw as she disappeared into Maynard’s was the battered Red Cross on her bag.
Rector swatted at Zeke’s arm. “Don’t let her put you off. We got a job. Let’s go do it.”
“I know, but…”
“But nothing. Don’t let her see you going soft.”
They stuck to the faster tunnels, even though it meant they had to wear their masks; and they took the hand-cranked mining carts with gusto, their fretful energy making double time on the straighter stretches, carrying them through the lines of track that took them up the hill at a steeper grade. At the tunnel’s end, where the tracks all stopped and the lanterns were turned up to their brightest glow, the travelers paused briefly to let their arms rest and their backs unwind from the effort.
Then they loaded themselves back up like pack mules and struck out for the city.
Each boy allowed himself one candle stub, carried in a hurricane glass. It barely did anything except tint the darkness yellow, but it was comfort enough to keep them moving forward. Someone standing half a dozen yards away couldn’t have seen them, so little light did the candles offer—and that was the idea, but it made for slow going.